AddieStan

From your blogstress's fellow traveler, In These Times columnist Hans Johnson , comes this informative analysis of California Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage last week in the nation's most populous state. Here's a taste: Sixty years ago, against a steep and contrary bent of public opinion, the same court upheld the right of a Mexican American woman, Andrea Perez, to marry her African-American sweetheart, Sylvester Davis, in Los Angeles. It took two decades for the U.S. Supreme Court to finally follow California’s lead and nix all such bans on interracial marriages. In the current marriage case, Carlos Moreno, the court’s sole Latino justice, and two others joined the ruling by George, an appointee of former Republican governor Pete Wilson. George became the court’s chief justice the very month (May 1996) that fellow Californian Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, confounded religious conservatives by striking down an ant...

Indeed the time did arrive, mes amis , for your blogstress to offer an adult-type comment on yesterday's decision by the California Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage. Adult-type meaning an expression of opinion that goes beyond your Webwench's native suspicion of marriage as a desirable state. And so, your ecrivaine dares to posit, at The Guardian's lively opinion site, Comment is Free, that when the "gay marriage" decision becomes an issue in the presidential campaign, it will likely hurt John McCain more than it will the Democratic nominee. CLICK HERE TO READ "MARRIAGE, CALIFORNIA STYLE" AT COMMENT IS FREE

Having been married once, your blogstress has never been one to beat the gay-marriage drum so loudly. While she understands that there are no equal rights for queer folk until we are free to marry within our own gender frames, it is an issue with such improbable personal ramifications for your Webwench that she has scarely ever worked up a dewy glow over it. Marriage is marriage, with all the attendant dynamics, and once was enough for your ecrivaine . She simply doesn't see where being married to a woman would be much of an improvement on that shopworn theme. That said, today's decision from the California Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage is a mind-blower. It's good stuff on the rights front. Gonna be evil in the presidential election. My solution? Keep the state out of the marriage biz altogether. Marriage is the business of the churches.

The plot thickens in the strange tale of the paleo-Catholic, gay-baiting, Rove-hating Bush administration nemesis and appointee, Scott Bloch , who heads the Office of Special Counsel. We recently learned from the Associated Press (AP) that shortly after the departure of Karl Rove from the White House, a task force for an investigation launched by Bloch stood poised to request documents from the Justice Department, only to have Bloch shut down the probe. The investigation was focused on the possible political use of federal prosecutors to smear Don Siegelman , the Democratic governor of Alabama, in a way that would prevent his re-election. It is suspected that Rove was involved. I have long suspected that another investigation led by Bloch's office that looked at the use of government personnel by Rove's office in conducting political operations in the 2006 elections on behalf of the Republican Party was the thing that caused Rove to resign . But perhaps that was just the ...

Crowded out of news coverage by the election and the tragedy in Burma is the curious case of Scott Bloch , who heads the Bush administration's Office of Special Counsel. Anybody who doubts the penchant for vindictiveness exercised by Club Bush -- or the long reach of departed Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove -- should view the case of Bloch as a cautionary tale. Bloch started off as what appeared to be a team player, using his office to terrorize gay people who worked in government -- especially those career attorneys who worked in his office. But when Bloch's antics began to chalk up bad publicity, he was asked to resign, and refused. Then he set about finding his pound of flesh -- in none other than Turd Blossom (as Rove is affectionately called by the president). As your blogstress wrote last year at The American Prospect Online : Bloch's inquiry lifted the lid on what many of us, dismissed as too partisan to be heeded, had already known: that under Rove's tutel...

Tom McDermott , the white mayor of Hammond, Indiana , used his star turn on CNN last night to accuse Rudy Clay , the black mayor of Gary, Indiana, of something that smells "corrupt" in the slow pace of election returns coming out of that urban center in last night's presidential primary. The accusation came just around midnight, central daylight time, when the Indiana race, quite surprisingly, remained too close to call. McDermott is a Hillary Clinton supporter, and Clay, a Barack Obama supporter. Still awaiting transcript; will post tonight. (Your blogstress will be travelling much of the day.) UPDATE: Here's the transcript . Excerpt below. MCDERMOTT: I'm not going to pick on where I'm from. I'm proud to be from Lake County. And there is hanky-panky in politics all across the state of Indiana, all across the United States. I'm not going to dig into Lake County's past. But I can tell you that this is -- it looks improper, what's happenin...

Harold Ickes is known as Hillary Clinton 's arm-twister , the guy who's leaning on uncommitted superdelegates to move his candidate's way. Ickes is also the force behind a for-profit data aggregating firm , Catalist, mentioned in a recent TAP piece by Holly Yeager . Catalist provided the data used by Women Voices Women Vote (WVWV), the non-profit group behind troubling robo-calls received by North Carolina voters in the run-up to tomorrow today's primary. (Both the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns are also using Catalist data to target voters.) The WVWV calls are under suspicion as possible voter suppression tactics and, just days ahead of the North Carolina presidential primary, may have targeted registered African-American voters in that state. (Read Dana Goldstein 's TAPPED post here .) Critics contend that the WVWV calls to voters already registered to vote in the primary -- and the general election -- were seemingly designed to cause confusion, sin...